Summers
by Ruuger
Summary: Six summers he spent without her. Six chapters of Spike's life with Buffy. Spike & Buffy of sorts with implied Spike & Dru.
1. 1997

They crossed the desert by night with him driving, steering the car more by instinct than by anything he could see in the darkness beyond the blackened windshield. Drusilla was in the back, talking in a sing-song voice, telling a story to Miss Edith while she combed her hair. Spike was listening to her, smiling at her fairytale of blood and gore and dancing flowers, and he was happier than he had been for a very long time.

For the first time since Prague the world was smiling at them. When they had first decided to head towards the Hellmouth, Spike had dared to allow himself only small sliver of hope of restoring Drusilla's health, but the latest news from the minions he had sent ahead had made him wonder if even the Powers That Be themselves wanted Drusilla to regain her powers. Not only was the Master dead, making it easier for Spike to take over the Hellmouth, but both the Book of Du Lac and Angelus had somehow also found their way to the small town of Sunnydale.

And then there was of course the Slayer.

A pretty little blonde thing from what he'd heard, but with a fire to her that had gained her quite a reputation in the demon world. The stories he'd heard of her, often told with voices trembling with fear, reminded him of the girl he had killed in New York. He'd danced with her all night, and when he had finally broken her neck, the taste of her blood had been glorious. Just as glorious as would be the taste of the blood of Buffy Summers.

There had never been a vampire who had killed three Slayers and only a handful of those who had killed even one, and to kill the slayer who had slain the Master...

Spike smiled. When he killed her, his name would be remembered until the end of time.

He was roused abruptly from his reverie by the sharp pain of Drusilla's fingers wrapping around his neck, digging so deep that her nails drew blood. Struggling to keep the car on the road, he glanced into the rear view mirror, seeing only Miss Edith hang in the air in the otherwise empty car, her dark eye sockets staring at him as Drusilla's fingernails dug deeper into his flesh.

"Jesus, Dru, what-" he started, but her fingers curled tighter around his neck and as he brought the car to halt, she leaned closer and whispered to his ear.

"Kill her, Spike. Kill her for us, or the little blackbirds will turn dust in the sun and the nasty little worms will eat inside their heads until there is nothing left."

"Kill who?" he asked when she finally released him of her grip, but the moment had passed and she was already back on her seat, studying the face of Miss Edith, singing to herself in a quiet voice.

"Kill who, Dru?"

He waited for a few minutes, just in case she had another vision, and then started the car. They were only a few hours' drive away from Sunnydale and when they got there, he would heal Dru, kill Angelus, drain the slayer, and everything would be fine again. 


	2. 1998

The rumours caught up with them two days after they had crossed the Mexican border. Angelus was dead, killed by the Slayer, skewered and then pushed into his own hell portal. Good riddance, as far as Spike was concerned, but unfortunately Drusilla did not share his opinion.

She had hardly spoken two words to him since Sunnydale. She was still angry at him for betraying her daddy, and when she had heard about Angelus' death, she had locked herself in the bedroom of the suite where they were staying, throwing pieces of furniture at Spike whenever he tried to come to talk to her.

He had already been forced to kill three hotel guests who had come to complain about the noise and he knew it wouldn't be long before someone made the connection between him and the bodies.

It was all the Slayer's fault.

After few days of quite undignified begging for Dru to let him back into their bedroom, Spike had made himself a nest in the sitting room where he spent his days reading the old volumes he had stolen from the Watcher's library and had had the foresight of storing in his car before all hell had broken loose.

Most of the books were useless, either because their subject matters were unimportant or already familiar to Spike, or because they were written in languages he couldn't read, but there was one that had held his attention for several days already.

He had heard of the Gem of Amarra, of course - every vampire had - but the way the book described the gem and the place where it was supposed to be hidden made Spike suspect for the first time that the jewel wasn't just a myth.

The book was written in Latin, a language that he had once been able to both read and write fluently, but his skills had since grown rusty from the lack of use and so he did not understand everything, and mostly scanned the pages for words and phrases he recognised. He was engrossed in trying to decipher a particularly interesting passage when Dru finally decided to leave her room.

"Do you want to get something to eat, love?" he asked with feigned casualness, pretending that he was still reading the book.

Hundred plus years of living with Drusilla had taught him that sometimes the best solution to an argument was to pretend that it had never happened. In the best case scenario she had been distracted by her pixies or fairies - or whatever creatures she was holding court with at the time - and had already forgotten having been mad at him in the first place.

"I saw a nice restaurant just a few blocks away, I could get you a pretty little waitress to feed on. Or if you want something younger, a place like this, there's bound to be an orphanage around somewhere."

When there was no answer, he surreptitiously glanced up from his book only to find that Drusilla was standing across the room, staring at him, quite obviously still angry as hell. So much for that plan, then.

Spike sighed and returned to his book. They could only stay at the hotel for a few more days before people started to get curious, and he would much rather have her leave by her own accord than with him having to knock her unconscious. 

He was half reading, half trying to think of some way to placate Drusilla, when suddenly a familiar phrase caught his eye. Valley of the sun. Sunnydale.

"Bloody hell..."

It didn't surprise him, not really, that the gem was in Sunnydale. It was the Hellmouth, after all. It was where everything seemed to end up eventually.

"Is she speaking to you again, Spike?" 

They could rule the world with that gem, they could do anything they wanted.

"Is she whispering naughty things, trying to make my beautiful knight leave his princess?"

And if they turned back now, they could take the Slayer by surprise. She would never expect them to return this soon.

"Will she take you from me, make you taste likes ashes and salt?"

He was vaguely aware of Drusilla trying to pry the book from his hands, but he only absentmindedly waved her away. The text wasn't clear on where in Sunnydale the gem was, only that it was somewhere underground, but there were enough references to ancient landmarks that with some research, he could pinpoint the exact location. 

"Am I not your princess anymore?"

They still had some minions left in Sunnydale, enough to get things rolling and when he had the gem, it would be easy to take the slayer down. Oh, how he would enjoy killing her.

"She will eat your heart."

The first thing to do would be to break into the Watcher's library and-

There was a sound of the door slamming close, and Spike reluctantly lifted his eyes from the book to find himself alone again.

"Dru?" 


	3. 1999

"...and she left me, just like that. Didn't even bother to kill me, like I didn't matter...

"...so I go back and I torture her. 'Cause no bleeding magicks can beat a good old-fashioned torture...

"...'cause you know what, Clem... 'S Clem, right? 'Cause, Clem, women, they're like cars, see. Just not made out of metal...

"...then Dru's again all 'she's in you' and 'you taste like ashes' and 'I have to get my pleasures elsewhere' and then, and then one day I come home from hunt and she has her tongue down the throat of a chaos demon. A chaos demon! With all the antlers and, and slime, and, and, antlers...

"...but I'm gonna show her, right, gonna get the bloody gem of bleeding Amarra and gonna show her that Spike hasn't gone soft. And she'll be begging for me to take her back...

Momentarily pausing his monoloque, Spike glanced at the glass he was holding, finding it mysteriously empty. Putting on his game-face, he turned to glare at Willy who had somehow neglected his sacred duty as the filler of glasses, only to find out that the walls and the ceiling had somehow switched places some time during the night.

He was still staring at the ceiling in front of him, wondering if it was some spell that had turned the room around, when the worried face of his new best friend filled his vision.

"Look, buddy, I know you're heart-broken and all, but don't you think that maybe you've had enough to drink for one night?"

The ceiling and walls returned to their proper places when the demon-possibly-named-Clem reached towards Spike and effortlessly pulled him back to his feet.

"I get that you must love her very much, I mean, you were together for a hundred years or so, but is she really worth crying over - not that a guy like you would cry, that thing in the bathroom doesn't count - or should you just let her go and maybe find yourself another girl."

And suddenly Spike had a revelation.

"You know what? I don't need her. She can go and screw as many chaos demons she likes, I don't care. I get the gem, I'm gonna be the top dog around here. I'll be my own man, no more Spike and Dru, no more love's bitch, just Spike, the biggest baddest big bad that ever was. I don't need her, I can have anyone I want. Anyone."

To prove his point, he turned around, almost managing to do it without falling back to Clem's arms, and scanned the crowd until he found what he was looking for. She was standing at the doorway, all blonde hair and pouty lips, looking at the crowd with an intention to kill.

"I could have her."

The next morning when he woke up, there was a moment of pure terror when he found the blonde sleeping next to him.

He was still staring at her, trying to decide whether to bite her or run, when she rolled over to face him, opened her eyes and smiled.

"Good morning blondie bear."

Ignoring the hammering inside his skull, Spike grinned and buried his face in the blonde's ample chest. The bird's voice was giving him a bigger headache than the hang-over, but it could have been worse. As drunk as he had been the night before, he really could have gone and tried to bed the Slayer. 


	4. 2000

Spike spent most of the summer avoiding her. He knew the Scoobies wouldn't forget the Yoko-incident easily, so to avoid any spur of the moment stakings, he made sure he didn't get in Buffy's way all summer. He watched her, though, following her whenever she was on patrol, studying her from afar, marvelling at how she moved, fought, breathed. 

If anyone asked, he was just preparing for the day when he finally got the chip out. Familiarizing himself with her strengths and weaknesses. Working on his strategy for killing her. 

And if he should sometimes kill a demon she hadn't noticed, or a vampire waiting her in the shadows, it didn't count as helping.

He just wanted to kill her himself, nothing more. He only wanted to kill her. 


	5. 2001

The first thing he remembered after her death was waking up in the Summers living room with Dawn crying in his lap. For a few seconds he couldn't understand why she was crying - Glory was dead, the good guys had won and they had saved the world in the name of kittens and puppies and Santa Claus - until he remembered looking up and watching Buffy plummet from the tower like a falling star, remembered that it had been his failure that had killed her.

It had been less than a day since she had died, and he had already saved her more times than he could count. Every time he closed his eyes he was faster, stronger, smarter, better, and every time he fell asleep he saved her, every time a different way, only to lose her again every time he woke up.

Day seventeen he dreamt that he was strong enough to break Doc's grip and pull the demon off the tower with him.

He spent his nights patrolling, roaming the graveyards either alone or with the scoobies, but there was no joy in the hunt. It was a chore, a duty, a distraction.

Day thirty-four he dreamt that he cut Dawn loose before facing Doc, and the girl was able to escape while the two demons battled on the platform.

When he killed demons, it wasn't to make the world a better place, it wasn't because the scoobies asked his help. He killed demons to have some meaning in his world, some purpose for his existence, even though he knew that no matter how many beasts he killed, he would never be able to balance the scales.

Day fifty-one he dreamt that he swallowed his pride, called Angel, and begged the older vampire to help them.

Because she was dead and the world had died with her. What was left was just a shell, a land of walking corpses with hers the only one lying six feet under ground because he had failed, and for the first time in a hundred years he felt truly dead.

Day ninety-two he dreamt that he tracked down Ben and killed him before the ceremony, screaming in pain when the chip burned him up after he snapped the boy's neck.

And there was nothing he wouldn't give, nothing he wouldn't do, to get her back.

Day hundred-and-twenty-seven he dreamt that he killed Dawn himself when the portal opened.

Day hundred-and-twenty-eight he stopped sleeping. 


	6. 2002

He hadn't expected the nightmares. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected, but not the guilt and the pain and the nightmares that plagued him even when he was awake. Blood and tears and angels pinned to white tiled floors. Voices that screamed and begged and pleaded, and the silence that was even worse because it reminded him of his own emptiness. 

She came to see him sometimes. She never said anything, but he could feel her presence, standing right behind him, so close, yet never touching.

beneath (you are)  
her

He wasn't quite sure what he had expected, but it wasn't the guilt and the voices and the nightmares. 

A clean slate, perhaps, waking up as someone else, a different man, someone who wouldn't-

But he was still the same, it was all still the same

(except the pain and the voices)

only broken into pieces.

And he was afraid Terrified by the thought that perhaps the whole soul thing was just one big joke played by the universe at his expense, that there was no difference, soul or no soul, and he was just as worthless to her now as he had been before.

(a monster)

She never stayed long, and he never found enough courage to turn to look her in the eyes, never found the words to ask her not to go.

Without making a sound she left him, faded into the darkness as if she'd never even been there, and he was alone again, only the Atlantic waves whispering to him as they caressed the hull of the ship. 


End file.
